To the question of how big a midseason college football game can be, Saturday is big to the extent that Ohio State is ranked No. 1, night maneuvers at Camp Randall always tend to be big, the last Big Ten championship without a playoff is available to up to five teams and Wisconsin is involved in all those scenarios.

So, yeah, it's undeniably big.

But sometimes there's a tendency to redline the hype-o-meter's needle and overvalue such an event, especially when the Buckeyes are involved.

For example, when Ohio State came to Madison in 1993, some, while disregarding the fact Wisconsin once had a sporadically dominating program in the days before the complete escalation of the Vietnam War, were billing it as the biggest football game in school history.

True, Wisconsin was on trajectory for its first Rose Bowl appearance in 31 years. The Badgers had just beaten Michigan the week before, and while some in the student section were rushing the field in celebration, part of the stadium's front rail collapsed and a number of people were injured. It all made for a surreal and heightened sense of anticipation for the latest game of the century.

And down to the wire it went, with UW's Rick Schnetzky lining up for what would've been the game-winning kick. But there came Marlon Kerner flying in from the left side to make a play that earned him a small anteroom in the Ohio State pantheon to which Jack Nicklaus, Archie Griffin and Jerry Lucas hold the keys.

When Kerner blocked the kick, one of the nation's rowdiest stadiums went pffffft like it had never gone pffffft before. In a time before ties were judiciously settled, the Biggest Game Ever ended in a tie and people were walking out saying to no one in particular, "That's it, the Badgers' Rose Bowl hopes are pretty much gone."

Of course, they were not.

Ohio State's unbeaten season went where it usually goes to die, at Michigan. Meanwhile, the Badgers schlepped to the other side of the world to play Michigan State in a regular-season game in Tokyo, pre-sold several years earlier to help satisfy the athletic department's debt, and it was there under cover of North American darkness that the Rose Bowl was earned.

Point being, big games are not always what they seem at the time.

In fact, I'd argue the Ohio State game Wisconsin played the year before, also in Madison but with much less fanfare, was just as important, and maybe even more critical in the grand scheme of a developing program, to what had occurred with great buildup in '93.

In the Big Ten opener of what would be a 5-6 season, the Badgers beat Ohio State. In retrospect, it was the over-the-hump event for the next three Rose Bowls. For the better part of three difficult seasons Barry Alvarez was trying to change a losing mentality and convince his players they could win. Finally, they began to believe it when they beat Ohio State.

These, of course, are different times.

While Wisconsin has long grown into a serious program, it's not on Ohio State's historical level and probably never will be. The Badgers are still the underdog and not expected to win at home with a 3-16 record all-time against No. 1s.

Yet as in '93, and even in '92, they have a major point to prove. This coaching staff has never beaten Ohio State. Maybe if it happens, it could be Bret Bielema's next-tier hump experience (BCS, anyone?) as it was for Alvarez in '92.

But win or lose in the latest Really Big Game, nothing is going to be definitely settled in Week 7.